Snowballs and Blizzards
by Firekat Archer
Summary: Who Jack is, why he's that way, and how the other Guardians find out. A collection of oneshots and drabbles about his life, before, during and after the movie.
1. The Workshop

**Hi! So, this is my new obsession. Saw the movie about a week ago, and I've been writing only RotG fanfiction since. And most of them have been one shots and drabbles, well, I'm uploading them. This will be updated erratically, mostly depending on when I get around to typing up my handwritten stuff.**

**And yes, I know there are a ton of different fics like this. I'm just adding my contribution to them.**

The Workshop

Jack flew lazily on top of the Arctic Circle, smirking as he was cursed in Russian. Well, not _him_ per say, but the snow that he created.

As he drifted north, Jack could hear voices and music. His brow furrowed in confusion. Who in the world was at the North... Pole...

Jack grinned. He had found Santa's Workshop. What else should he do but sneak in? After all, he hadn't gotten a Christmas present in... ever. Saint Nick surely owed him one at the very least.

He floated up to a window leading to an empty room, with nothing but a table and empty shelves there. Jack didn't know what the room was for, but the window looked easy to open. It swung open with a slight pull, and Jack slid in.

The room was warm, and small frost patterns marred the wooden floor where his feet landed. Jack smirked at them, even as they melted. No way would Santa Claus miss his visit. He breathed in deeply, and savored the smell of baking sweets and sawdust mingling in the air.

He walked into the hall beyond the room, marveling at the elaborate decorations. Jack was confident that he wouldn't be seen by anyone. And if he was, well - they probably wouldn't see him. No one ever did.

Jack followed the sounds of hammering and sawing, and bumped into something very fuzzy, very warm, and very big. He stumbled back to stare at the yeti. Who was staring right back at him. "Oh. Um. Hi?"

The yeti grunted something at him.

"I don't understand yetish, sorry." This earned him another grunt, and a heavy hand landed on his shoulder. The hand pushed him down the hall, away from the sounds of the workshop.

Jack shrugged good-naturedly, happy simply that he'd found someone who could see him finally. Too happy to really to fight to go to the workshop.

"So, what's your name? I'm Jack Frost," he said.

"Blowlgrawaw."

"Okay, I'll just call you Phil, then," Jack said. "Phil's good, right?"

The yeti's shoulders shook with what Jack hoped was laughter, and opened a large, ornate door. Outside was a blizzard - Jack's blizzard.

"Okay, okay, I'll go," Jack said. "But I'll be back, Phil! Count on it." And he flew off into the storm.

The newly-dubbed Phil, for his part, was unsure if that was a threat or a promise.

**Headcannon: Phil really likes Jack, despite having to keep him out of the Workshop for a couple of centuries (this takes place, oh, late1700s, early 1800s). They're actually pretty good friends. Actually, Phil might be one of Jack's only friends. Let's see... there's Wind, Phil, Sandy... I can't think of more. At least, pre-movie.**


	2. Why

**I'm just feeling kind of angsty right now. These things happen on occasion.**

Why

Jack looked desperately at all of the people around him, trying to meet the eyes of just one. To touch just one. But slowly the people left the snow-covered streets, disappearing inside. No one invited him inside, no one asked if he was cold. No one asked if he was fine. One woman hurried through the streets and Jack stepped in front of her.

"Please!" he begged, but she couldn't hear him, and walked right through him. Tears stung his eyes, and Jack turned away from the lights of the houses, away from the streets of people that he was invisible to. He ran back to the lake, to the only place he had ever known. He was blinded by tears that he refused to shed, an aching loneliness that he didn't know how to cure defining his world.

Something caught his foot, and he fell face first into the snow that was a pleasant temperature instead of being freezing. It was only then that the tears fell unbidden, icy cold to anyone but him. Jack knew instinctively that he was different, that anything this cold should be _cold_, and not pleasant.

"Why?" he sobbed to the Moon. "Why am I here?"

There was no answer. Later, there never was any answer. The Moon only ever answered one question, the first one Jack had asked.

"_Who am I?"_

_Jack Frost._

Sometimes, Jack wondered if Moon even knew why Jack was there. If Moon had only created him on a whim, some cruel diversion for him. But Jack never stopped asking. He looked everywhere for answers, but there were none. Only the question.

"_Why?"_

**This is based on this pic: **** darkhalo4321. deviantart art/RotG-Tripping-on-Snow- 332882312 (remove spaces)**


	3. Naughty List

**I just can't seem to write any fluff for this guy. I try and try, and it just turns into angst. Maybe it's the fact that I should be studying for finals instead of writing. Nor can I write anything long. Meh, I'm sure one of the two will happen soon.  
**

**Oh! And the request line is open. I can't say I'll write everything, but I'll give it a shot.  
**

Naughty List

"Am I on the Naughty List?" Jack asked, masking his desperation with a smirk and turning away. After all, if he wasn't, if there wasn't a reason that he hadn't been given a gift ever, in 300 years, he didn't know what he would do. Because, now he knew that more than just Bunny and Sandy knew of him. After all, North was clearly the leader here, and there was no way Bunny would ever voluntarily have anything to do with Jack. And there was no way North didn't know about the break-in attempts. Phil had been livid over the mess last time.

"On Naughty List?" North laughed, and Jack's stomach dropped. "You hold the record."

And the tension in Jack's stomach eased, and he went back to wondering why he was there. Because no one wanted Jack Frost. He knew that all too well.

**Headcanon: Jack has terrible self-esteem. Comes of never having anyone to care for him.**


	4. Perception

**So, here's a thing that has been floating around in my brain. Because after 300 years of minimal contact with people, Jack doesn't really know too well how to read and interact with people. So this is a big misunderstanding on everyone's part, basically. I might write a sequel to this, about how that misunderstanding gets corrected eventually. And guess what! This is my longest chapter so far! Score!**

**And as for how late this is well... Call it life and the fact that my relatives might have driven me crazy - well, crazier.**

**Enjoy!**

Perception

Watching the other Guardians interact from his perch on a corner chair, Jack couldn't help but feel a familiar ache in his chest. An ache of loneliness so deep that his chest physically hurt, but so heart-rendingly familiar that Jack could easily cover it up with a smile that never reached his eyes.

They were all so comfortable with each other. They had a rhythm, and no matter what they said, no matter how he tried, Jack knew that he would never fit into it. That he would always be on the outside looking in, never invited inside. After all, everyone always said to "close the door, don't let Jack Frost in." So why should they be any different?

It took all of Jack's willpower to stay seated in the room he didn't belong in, to not fly off to the wind. To keep smiling that fake smile at the Guardians, all too giddy from success and half-drunk from North's eggnog to notice. Jack wondered if they even noticed he was there.

Bunny was the first to pass out, quickly followed by Tooth. North managed to stay awake for a bit longer, probably due to whatever tolerance he had built up to eggnog, but even he soon fell down on the sofa. Sandy smiled sleepily at the pile, and sent a bit of his dream-sand their way before closing his own eyes.

And Jack, who'd been nursing one glass of eggnog the whole night, watching North push dozens of glasses on the others, flew out of the window to cry to the wind.

A blizzard so fierce it rocked the workshop raged that night, but it failed to wake the Guardians from their slumber.

}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{

"Ugh, too much eggnog," Bunny moaned, wincing away from the bright lights. "Why'd you keep giving me glasses?"

"You can never have too much eggnog," North declared, despite the fact that he, too, hid from the lamps. "Come, friends, let us go have breakfast. That will fix us."

"If only," Tooth moaned. "Come on Sandy, wake up."

The little man shifted slightly, and blinked. A snowflake appeared above his head with a question mark as he looked around the room.

"Sandy's right, where's Jack?" Tooth asked. "I don't remember if he was here after a number of eggnogs."

"He was," North said uncertainly. "Perhaps one of the yetis showed him to a room. After all, he may not have been comfortable sleeping here."

"Sandy, you can find him, right?" Tooth said anxiously. Sandy nodded, and pulled out a bit of dreamsand. He tossed it into the air, and it floated to the window.

"Must have gone home, then," North decided. "I wonder where that is, for him."

"Maybe when we see him next, he can tell us," Tooth said, excited about seeing Jack's home.

"What kind of place would Frostbite live?" Bunny asked.

While the three speculated where Jack would live, Sandy stared out the window at the raging blizzard, and frowned. Then North reached out to snag his sleeve. "Let us go down to breakfast, yes? It should be good." And Sandy followed his fellow Guardians down the stairs, lost deep in thought.

**Headcanon: Sandy is the most perceptive of all the Guardians. And the only one who thinks that maybe Jack isn't okay quite yet. The others don't know him well enough or, in Bunny's case, don't care enough. Although Bunny will. Eventually.**


	5. What the Wind Saw

**Here's another chapter, from the wind's POV. I don't really know what this is, but it was interesting. And yes, I think the wind is intelligent. It's one of Jack's friends.**

**I feel like I should say more, but I can't think of anything. Have fun!**

What the Wind Saw

The wind loved Jack Frost. Oh, it let the other seasons ride it (for it was many places at one time, and should properly be called "the winds"), but it carried none but Winter. At least, the latest spirit to be called Winter. Winter was the one season that changed often. Too often they let themselves be carried away by the cold and the ice.

Jack had not let himself freeze, despite his loneliness. Perhaps, it was _because_ of his loneliness that he did not. He didn't know it was possible to, just as he did not know that the other seasons ordered the wind around until he had made a habit of asking.

Summer saw that as a weakness, and scorned Jack for it. Fall hated Winter or destroying his work, and had always ignored the winter spirits. Spring could care less, but Jack overstayed his welcome in the Northern Hemisphere far too many times. She started to hate him with a passion as fierce as Fall's. The wind knew that Fall and Spring often conspired to drive Jack to fall to the cold like his predecessors. It tried to tried to combat that, always keeping a piece of itself near Jack, to make him feel less lonely.

It pushed him into Sandman one night, and there Jack found a friend. And the few Tooth Fairies the wind found near Jack weren't averse to him, but they never seemed to meet more than once (and in any case, it's hard to build a friendship with fairies who swoon over teeth). It helped Jack to break into Santoff Claussen many times to see Phil. But Jack was still lonely, still unseen by the children, whom he so badly wanted to play with. And for every friendly spirit Jack met, there were another 3 who hated him or didn't care about him.

The wind didn't know how long it could keep Jack from the cold's siren call to destruction under these circumstances.

Then the Guardians finally took notice of Jack, and the wind rejoiced. Jack had finally found a family, it knew, even if none of them had realized it yet.

And every time after the battle with Pitch, after Jack had found both a family and believers, when the wind carried Jack, he wasn't so cold. The wind knew that Jack was in safe hands. That he wouldn't be freezing anytime soon.

**Headcanon: there is 1 spirit for every season (Bunny isn't Spring, just like North isn't Winter), and they can all ride the wind. The other 3 are far older than Jack.**


	6. Chasing Jack

Chasing Jack

**Here's the follow-up to Perception, as promised. Someone requested it too (sorry, I don't remember who you are), so thanks to you for that motivation.  
This chapter was really hard to write, for some reason. I think I need more practice writing fluff and things like this. I really like reading it though. Maybe it's because I tend to write when I'm sad and read when I'm happy. Whatever.  
Enjoy!**

It was only after North recovered from his hangover that he thought to ask a yeti where Jack was. It only shrugged and muttered something in yetish about "trouble-making spirits" and "drink less eggnog." Then it stomped off to go make more toys.

North frowned at its retreating back. If Jack hadn't gotten a bed from the yetis, and hadn't slept in the room with them, where was he?

Tooth flitted up beside him. "So? Where is he?"

"Not here. Yeti say they did not see him," North said. "He must have left."

"Well, I have to go. I'll tell my fairies to look for him, okay?" She flew off towards the room holding the snow globes, since the blizzard outside hadn't died down at all in the past several hours.

Sandman and Bunny also said their farewells, and promised the worried Russian that they would look for Jack.

"I don't see what the problem is, but I'll do it," Bunny grumbled. "He's a loner. I'm not surprised he didn't stay for the whole party."

"I just want to make sure he is fine," North said. "Thank you, Bunny."

Two days later, the blizzard had let up, and there had been no sight of Jack. Of course, it was spring in the Northern hemisphere and fall in the South, so perhaps he was holed up somewhere, waiting for winter. But North had a feeling that it was important to find the young Guardian as soon as possible.

Then he had an idea. Jack had been a child when he became a spirit, and he obviously believed in the Guardians, so his light should be on the globe somewhere! North came out of his office smiling. Of course! It was all so simple! He could calibrate the globe to show him where Jack was! Then he could go and visit him and make sure everything was fine, and put to rest the uneasiness in his belly.

Calibrating the globe was easy enough; North's globe was specifically made to tell him who each believer was, where they were, and what list they were on. It made Christmas Eve much easier.

Jack Frost, North typed into the globe, and hit enter.

Not found.

"Not found?! What does mean?" North growled. Only children who stopped believing were "not found." Jack believed. There was no way he couldn't.

Then North's belly dropped into the earth. Jack didn't believe in the Guardians. He didn't believe that North would give him a present, he didn't believe that Tooth would give him money for any teeth he lost. He didn't believe that Bunny left eggs for him, he didn't believe that Sandy crafted dreams just for him. North now knew that there was a far more serious problem than he ever dreamed.

Jack didn't believe they were there for him, so what reason would he have to stay with them?

North mourned Jack's lack of belief for a bit, then rolled up his sleeves.

It was time to get serious about Operation Find Jack Frost.

**}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{**

Sandy found Jack three after the blizzard in the pole ended. He was in Northern Canada, a few miles from the arctic circle, in too deep a sleep to dream. That alone worried Sandy. Jack never slept more than a few hours at a time, never getting deep enough to not dream. North was right to be worried about the winter spirit.

Sandy flew to Santoff Clausen, letting his dreamsand direct itself around the world. He didn't have to construct dreams with it, but he enjoyed giving children extra special dreams. With a personal touch, he could make sure that nightmares were kept at bay, and that children who needed dreams were getting them.

When Sandy found North, the man was bustling about, yelling at yetis and elves. The screen before the globe had a single message on it: Not found.

Sandy could have told North that. Now, if only he could get the other's attention, they could get to Jack and remedy that.

"Dingle! Get sleigh ready! No, not going to use it now! Just later! Yes, I know reindeer feel overworked. Tell young ones who are ready to take places. Not all of them! I know that."

Sandy sighed soundlessly. Yes, he was short and didn't make noise, but was he really that noticeable?

He seized an elf running by, and shook it vigorously.

North turned around. "Sandy! What is it?"

Dreamsand formed a snowflake, and a map of Canada.

"You know where Jack is? Let us go!" And North dragged Sandy off to the sleigh. "You!" He gestured at a startled yeti. "Tell the others!"

**}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{}*{**

Jack was buried deep in the branches of a pine tree when they found him, fast asleep, curled around his staff. No golden dreamsand danced above his head. Sandy flew up to wake him, and the wind swirled around him, making it difficult to fly. The rough breeze drew Jack from his sleep.

"Wind, calm down," he muttered, eyes half open. Then he saw the two Guardians. "Oh. What do you want?" His voice changed abruptly from joking love to a flat, joyless tone.

"We were worried about you, Jack," North said. "You disappeared after party. No one has seen you for days!" Sandy nodded vigorously.

"And here I thought that was usual," Jack snarked, sitting up on the branch. "You never cared before. Why start now?"

North felt a pang in his chest. "I wish to make up for that, Jack. We cannot go back in time, but we can try to start over. Come back to Pole with me?" Sandy smiled hopefully.

Jack stared at him. "Why? So you can ignore me again?"

North shook his head. "No, so we can talk, get to know each other. I won't ignore you, promise."

Jack bit his lip, eyes darting around. He shifted, looking like he was ready to fly off into the wind. "I don't know. Haven't had the best experiences there."

North frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You didn't even notice. At the party." Realization dawned on Sandy, but North was still clueless. "I might as well have been invisible to you."

"Oh!" North was surprised, then guilt slammed into him. "I am so sorry you felt like that, Jack. You just seemed so comfortable, and you were smiling..."

"Now you know. Go away." Jack turned his back on them, but didn't fly off. North and Sandy still had a chance to start fixing things.

An Australian accent made all three jump. "Ya can't get rid of us that easily, ya gumby. I know ya ain't used to people, but we ain't mind readers." Bunny had his arm crossed, and Tooth fluttered beside him.

"Bunny's right, Jack," she said. "We have to get used to you, too."

"Come back with us?" North asked. Sandy smiled pleadingly, and images of iced elves and cookies danced above his head.

Jack looked at them, unreadable, biting his lip. "Maybe." A gust of wind pushed him off the branch, lowering him to the ground. "Hey! Wind!"

North laughed, all the way down to his belly, at Jack's indignant face. "See! Even wind agrees!"

Jack looked around him, at the laughing Guardians surrounding him, and slowly smiled. "I guess I'll have to come back, then."

North's smile grew even bigger. "Come! To the sleigh!"

Bunny gulped. "I'll take -"

"Nonsense!" The Cossack grabbed him. "Sleigh much better!"

As Bunny scrambled for handholds, Jack laughed. It was like a bell ringing through a snow-filled clearing, and the Guardians knew, all of them, that they could make this work.

**I borrowed the bit about Jack not being on the globe from someone's fic. I really should look that up to figure it out, but I'm lazy like that. & North's speech is really hard to write! Bunny, I just look up Australian slang. North, I have to figure out what words to take out. Meh. I'll get the hang of it eventually.**

**Edit: The fic I'm talking about is The Brightest Light by whitetiger2194. Thanks, Witch08 and Effugere for telling me!****  
**


End file.
